This volume provides a cross-national analysis of the changing identities of various national and ethnic groups, their new political influence in the emergent democracies and their efforts to revive suppressed cultures. It begins with a theoretical analysis of the concepts of national identity and ethnicity. It features case studies of contemporary Belarussian, Polish and Ukrainian national identities before turning to a study of Eastern Europe's hidden ethnic minorities, like the Finno-Ugric peoples in Russia, the Lemkos in Poland and the Gypsies in Bulgaria.

This guide charts national histories and policies, relevant statistics and chronologies, and the identities, programmes, and activities of the full spectrum of ethnically-based parties and organizations in Central and Eastern Europe.

This collection analyzes the clash of relatively small nationalities with the great empires of the last two hundred years: the Ottomans, the Habsburgs, Germany, and the Soviet Union. In light of events since 1989, the volume considers the many nationalisms, political, civic, ethnic, to which this region of Europe has given rise.

This book examines the dynamic role that language plays as a unifying factor in maintaining and reinforcing national identity in Central and Eastern Europe in the post-communist period when new nation states were formed. It covers linguistic identity, linguistic exclusion or inclusion, languages in contact and languages in conflict.

This is the first volume in which the fate of democracy is directly related to ethnic diversity. It highlights the crucial episodes in modern European political history, and shows in what sense ethnic diversity was of vital importance.